


no mercy you grant (and no mercy you'll get)

by latinacap



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Horror Story References, Eventual Happy Ending, Ghosts, Horror, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Couple, Mutism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scary Movie Tropes, Slice of Life with Horror, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, War Veteran Steve Rogers, mentions of gore and violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 23:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16459520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latinacap/pseuds/latinacap
Summary: Moving to into a new home in upstate New York seemed like a dream for new parents, Steve and Bucky Rogers-Barnes. They had just adopted a daughter, working hard to build a bond with her despite her selective mutism. The house was a bit of a fixer-upper, but the land had a nice lake, tall trees, and the isolation they desperately needed after being honorably discharged from the army.The only problem?Something is not entirely right with Lily Rogers-Barnes.(or, you've heard of "white dad moves to new house out in the middle of nowhere for a fresh start" but this time it’s TWO white GAY dads move out in the middle of nowhere with their newly adopted (possibly demonic) daughter for a new start)





	no mercy you grant (and no mercy you'll get)

**Author's Note:**

> This is so late omg but I've been meaning to write this for two months, I just suck at writing beginnings. This is kinda a crossover with American Horror Story: Coven but it's going to be a little different so bare with m,e babes!
> 
> This is my first time writing a horror multi-chapter and according to my amazing beta, this is scary as fuck.
> 
> So WARNING: Multiple animal death, a very minor character death, graphic descriptions of amputation in a drawing, and off-screen torture. 
> 
> I have some hints in this chapter relating to the Bible, demons, and American Horror Story so see if you can find them!
> 
> Enjoy!

_I have a deadly nightshade,_

_So twisted does it grow,_

_With berries black as midnight,_

_And a skull as white as snow,_

_The vicor's cocky young son,_

_Came to drink my tea,_

_He touched me without asking,_

_Now he's buried 'neath a tree._

_\- Trad. "Girls' Skipping Rhyme" from Chockely in Wynterset_

 

* * *

 

 

Miss Robichaux’s orphanage was as quiet as the night that laid around it. The halls were polished, and the fireplace had been snuffed out long before the children have filed into bed for the morning that laid ahead for them. The house creaked with old age as the hours ticked by, a quiet rumbling that Cordelia Goode realized were a quiet omen for what was to come in the following hours. She was foolish, believing that the sage and the lemongrass oil could hold off the presence that had held the residents of Miss Robichaux’s in a choke-hold since the arrival of the only survivor from Hawthorn.

Once the little girl had stepped foot into the marbled entrance of the grand manor, it seemed that the flowers have before a rapid process of wilting that Cordelia had never seen in all of her years in charge of the orphanage. The walls seemed to cave in wherever her small Mary-Janes stepped, the rest of the residents complaining about the overwhelming stench of rotten eggs that followed the child. The paintings of their previous Supremes — hung elegantly in the parlor with their wise faces and poise power — all looked distorted, frowning and gaze always glued on the girl that walked the halls.

Cordelia found herself keeping a close eye on the child. She excelled in her studies, though the girl kept to herself and a stuffed rabbit she arrived with that she lovingly named Mara. The other children steered clear of her, whispering as she passed with a blood, red ribbon tied in her hair that no one knew who put it there. The doves they used for transmutation practice always chirped uncontrollably whenever the girl got within even a few feet of them, the birds going as far as even pecking fights with the others in the cage until she was removed from the room completely. Of course, there was also the most troubling fact about the child, being that she never spoke a word.

The whole point of the child being sent to Miss Robichaux’s was because of incidents that happened at the last orphanage she lived in. There wasn’t much told about the accident, but from what Cordelia gathered, it had something to do with the lunch lady found face down in a tub of spaghetti sauce. It could’ve been anything, really, but the same red ribbon from the child’s hair was found stuffed down the woman’s throat.

Despite the fact that Lily was far from the woman on the other side of the lunch counter, deep blue eyes piercing at the scene before in a way that the previous Headmaster had described as an “otherworldly evil.” It only took a few days for them to send the child to Miss Robichaux’s, and the child had been with them ever since.

Granted, most of the alumni at the orphanage and academy have been brought to them because of an occurrence of the supernatural nature. Some girls had had an outburst in which things flew off the shelves, other suffered from constantly being bombarded with the pain of others, and most have had parents who have tried to tame their gifts but simply lacked the patience to teach. Each and every girl at Miss Robichaux’s was unique in their experience yet tied together with the simple fact that their magic was uncontrolled. The only difference between them and Lily was the absolute calculation and focus the child possessed in making bad things occur.

It wasn’t enough to bring a dead frog back to life, but Lily had to make it age so rapidly that it turned to dust within seconds. The candle would light from a glance, only to have it catch another girl’s hair on fire. The rose blossomed on command, and Lily made sure it morphed into a sack of spiders. No matter what the child did, it always came with an unfortunate darkness to it that Cordelia couldn’t understand why.

Which was how the Supreme found herself bent over her work in the early hours of the morning, tapping her pen in unison with the ticking of the grandfather clock that echoed in the large space of the living room. The manor was dark save for the lamp in the corner of the room, and music from her record played softly to the sleeping angels above the staircase. There was the occasional clatter of the doves, perhaps even the whispers of wind against the large windows in the room. She waited, long hours and tense seconds, until the clock stroke three.

 _Dong_ . _Dong. Dong._

The room grew cold, and Cordelia immediately jumped up from her chair. Her breath fogged in front of her lips, casting the mist across the room as she looked around for anything out of the ordinary. The whispers of those who have died within the walls of the manor grew terrified and loud, the sounds of ghostly feet scuttering along the marbled floor as they rushed past her in an unseen stampede. Nevertheless, Cordelia straightened her shoulders. “Hello?” she called out, grabbing the candle from the coffee table drawer and with a blink, lit it to cast light towards the dark room. She took a step, night robe dragging along the floor being the only sound in the distance being echoed back. “I know someone is there. Who is it?”

The lamp shut off. Cordelia was completely casted in darkness save for the small light coming from the flicker of the candlelight. With her free hand, she used her magic to make the flame even bigger to see what laid before her. The chill of the room grew colder, and then became sweltering with every step she took. In all her years of being in charge of the orphanage, she had never experience such a temperature spike. The room started to grow thick and humid, sweat already starting to bead down her temple when she licked her lips. “I assure you, there won’t be consequences for being awake. If it was a bad dream, I know the perfect remedy to chase the monsters away,” she smiled, though it felt plastic like a doll.

The quiet was a tad bit maddening, with her own thoughts to keep her sane as she lingered around the empty living room in the world’s most strangest game of hide and seek. Cordelia looked behind the curtains, the couch, the grand piano, and everywhere that a person can hid behind in her search. There was no one there.

Or so she thought.

Rounding the corner towards the stairs, Cordelia gasped and almost dropped her candle. Lily stood on the first few steps of the staircase, her face neutral and her arm choking the life out of Mara from where she clutched it against her chest. Her eyes pierced through the veil of darkness, but Cordelia smiled despite her uneasy gut. “Lily. You almost gave me a heart attack. What are you doing up?” she asked in the lightest tone she could muster, but the smile that occupied her face turned sour when she really looked at Lily.

Her porcelain white face was smeared with something dark, the substance staining her white nightgown in a color so dark that Cordelia hoped it came from a lost battle with the Devil’s food cake in the pantry, but the Supreme wasn’t raised in a barn, and she knew excessive amounts of blood when she saw it. It was fresh, the copper smell just hitting Cordelia as she took a step back to cover her nose. Lily didn’t move a muscle. “I couldn’t sleep,” the child said, eyes never blinking or shifting, “There was a cat that kept on meowing outside. Mara told me to take care of it,”

“In what way, dear?”

For the first time in over two months, Lily gave the smallest tilt of her lips into a smirk as she opened the palm of her other hand. A small butter knife slipped out of the small appendage, and clattered loudly on the floor near Cordelia’s feet. “I slit its throat,” 

The landscaper found the cat’s body the next morning, laying on it’s side in the yard with its head a good yard away from its body. A teenage girl brought it back to life with a blow of her breathe into the cat’s mouth, but the girl’s ability was no match for the dead mailman’s body they discovered in the shed with his head held together to his neck with a red ribbon.

The next night, Lily and Mara were gone. Cordelia found out that the child had fled to a different orphanage not far from Miss Robichaux’s. There was nothing that the coven could do to get the child back, so Cordelia sat in her chair every night, eyes on the dancing flames of the fireplace and twisting the ribbon around her fingers, waiting for the day that she would be needed.

She could only hope she could get there in time before body bags would be sent in.

 

* * *

 

_**Seven Months Later ...** _

 

“Hey, Steve, where do you want this box?”

The house was covered in thick layers of dust and cobwebs, shifting and moving with every breath that they took in the old house. The boxes were stacked almost to the ceiling, and the furniture was skewed in their positioning in the parlor, but Steve couldn’t be happier. He turned away from the fireplace mantel with a ceramic apple in hand, smiling at his husband.

His hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, his eyes almost closed from exhaustion and the glasses on his nose gave Bucky a soft vibe that Steve couldn’t help being attracted to. The box was labeled as “ _STEVE’S BOOKS_ ” in bold and scratchy black sharpie and a smiley face that Steve added himself when the older male complained about the sheer amount of historical nonfiction that the other had managed to cram into one box. Thankfully it wasn’t heavy enough to effect Bucky’s prosthetic, but Steve didn’t want to take chances.

“Go ahead and set it somewhere in the parlor,” Steve waved over in the general direction of the room, “I’ll sort it out later,”

Bucky nodded, moving past the blonde to go put the books somewhere in the large room. Most of the things that littered the room at the moment we're stuff labeled as bedroom stuff for the upstairs rooms. They agreed ahead of time to not take anything upstairs unless it was absolutely necessary of them, fearing that the back and forth might make them trip in their already on-set exhaustion.

They’ve been driving for hours to get from Indiana to New York, only stopping for bathroom and eating breaks. It was a marvel that Steve and Bucky were vibrating at an unnatural speed from all the coffee they’ve been consuming to keep themselves awake. The moving van had beat them there by three hours and the idiotic movers had chosen to leave their stuff unattended in the middle of the driveway. Although there was no neighbors around, there was reports that countless of teenagers from the town a few miles out liked to fuck around in the property.

The real estate agent was a middle aged woman with a voice that really grated at Steve’s senses whenever she spoke. She had warned them of some incidents that occured at the home, including vandalization and previous owners running for the hills from all the repairs that needed to be done. The photos she showed them were obviously staged or old imagines of the house before they allowed the property to fall into disrepair. The woman claimed that no one wanted to isolation that came with living in the house, her smile tight and wooden, but Steve chose to believe her since they were essentially getting the house at a much lesser value than what it should be worth.

They lived in their cozy apartment in Indiana since they both were young freshman in college, excited about having a place of their own. Best friends always dreamed of moving in with one another, right? It was a topic they loved to visit since they were young, both excited about being able to stay up late and eat whatever they wanted without their parents telling them no. It felt like a dream come true. Steve’s only issue at the beginning was keeping his feelings for the other at bay — considering that now the blonde would have to start sharing a bathroom with Bucky and might unfortunately come across a sock on the doorknob sooner or later — but he chalked it up as a small price to pay to be able to come home with a happy Bucky sitting on the floor of the living room trying to write an essay but failing to as his newest Netflix show played on their TV. It was a domestic kind of ignorant bliss, one that Steve never imagined would come to an end until the funds for the older males education came to an end and Bucky was forced to do the only thing that made sense to two young men with not a penny to their name: enlist.

And, of course, Steve would never let Bucky go anywhere he couldn’t follow.

The next five years were filled with sand and violence, the wariness of war that creeped deep into their bones as they laid on cots in the dead of the night. Steve remembered the feeling being like when he saw a horror movie and couldn’t sleep for the paranoia that clung to him for hours after the film ended. It was a soul-shattering existence out in the war, but it was also a blessing in a grotesque wrapping. Two years into their first tour, the carpe diem of their reality became too much for them and they found solace in each other’s arms. Their long years of pining finally came to an end in the form of numb fingers dancing on tanned skin and soft kisses stolen in passing. Be it their small living spaces or the fear of never seeing their shared home again, it was the final shove they needed into confessing their feelings for each other in the blistering sun of a nation they shouldn’t be in.

Fear was beaten by love for three years before the powers that be put their devotion to the test, and in a routine walk through the streets of a town that neither could remember, an explosion from a small, but powerful, IED sent Bucky and Steve into a land of pain and suffering. No one could’ve seen it hidden in the crevices of the sand, especially not when Bucky was too occupied admiring the blush on Steve’s cheeks when he stepped on the trigger. All Steve truly remembered was being thrown far from his lover and impacting with another soldier a good ten feet from the explosion. He remembered feeling a bittersweet bliss that it was one of them rather an unsuspecting child running out into the street to chase a ball. Better him than them. The ringing lasted longer than he expected, growing more unbearable when others rushed to his side and started moving their lips at him. It was calm in a way. Smoke was everywhere around him, but he couldn’t hear the screams or panicked running. If the realization that Bucky was nowhere near him anymore hadn’t hit him, he might’ve even laid down and taken a nap right then and there.

What followed were the worst months of his life. The explosion did it’s job in injuring and incapacitating the rest of their fellow soldiers, and by the time the dust had settled around screaming mothers and helpful bystanders, Bucky was nowhere to be seen. The only trace that he had been there was a pool of blood that Dugan had feared to be too large for someone to simply walk away from.

Joined by Agent Carter and her team, Steve set out on mission upon mission, siege upon siege to find Bucky in the war-torn country. He liberated soldiers of all shapes and sizes, smiling for the news but never uttering a since word to reporters as he rummaged through the rubble of enemy bases to find his soulmate. The search lasted so long, not even a ransom or a since clue as to where the man could be. His picture was splattered all over his social media pages, the tearful pleads of his family for prayers towards finding their son alive and well, and the inevitable realization that there were going to have to bury an empty coffin in a marked grave. The Barnes family used his military photo as a stock photo for whenever they mentioned the young man in holiday greetings and birthday wishes in March, but the one that Steve kept hidden in the pocket of his uniform was one he took in their apartment. The sun, the smile, the nostalgic fuzziness at the edges all reminded him that it was worth at least finding out what became of the beautiful soul that he couldn’t seen himself without.

Agent Carter smiled at him once in a while. She’d touch his arm, slightly angle her breasts towards him when he was near, and bat her eyelashes at him when he spoke. He wasn’t blind, but he wasn’t cruel, so he never let it go farther than a friendly hug. Maybe if it were another life, one where Bucky didn’t exist in a bleak universe out there, he would have smiled back at Peggy. He knew his mother would be over the moon if he brought a woman such as Peggy back home for the holidays, gush over the beautiful children they’d have, give Peggy her old wedding gown as her something borrowed, but his heart was without a doubt intertwined with the blue eyed Jewish man that Steve dreamed of every night as he held the older man’s pillow to his face to fein his presence near him. He had succumb to the idea that he’d never see Bucky’s smile ever again, when they finally got a hit.

Bucky was alive. Barely. 

They found him deep underground in a terrorist cell, kept alive by an IV inserted in his right arm. His body was littered with scraps and burns. The most notable injuries were the way his fingers were bent at unnatural angles and the swelling of fractured ankles, along with deep scar tissue around his temple. Not to mention how his left hand was missing four fingers, along with fingernails on the other hand. All in all, Steve felt like he had walked into the lair of a horror villain that lurked in the shadows of the darkest and twisted minds of humans. The love of his life could barely open his eyes to look at him for longer than a few seconds. It was sick, to think that Steve preferred Bucky to stay in his state of quiet confusion, because the moment Sam and Natasha had moved to undo the restraints on their fellow soldiers limbs, all Hell broke loose. Bucky immediately started screaming and kicking at his rescuers, shouting in a mixture of broken Russian and bits of Arabic while simultaneously trying to buck off the table. It was animistic the way he tried to escape from kind hands for the first time in months. He yelped when anyone got near him, twisting his tired body like a pretzel to get away from them as far as he could. It lasted for what seemed like hours, watching someone he loved lose a battle against insanity and fall into a twisted abyss that Steve wasn’t completely sure he could bring Bucky back out of. Sam had to eventually sedate the poor soldier to get him out of the dark and cold room, passing his unconscious body into Steve’s arms for safekeeping.

He’ll never forget how Bucky’s skin felt like under his fingers after all those months of being apart. He was far too skinny in the captain’s arms, all bones and clammy skin that shone with a fine film of sweat. The brunette muttered under his breath against Steve’s neck, hot and moist as he chanted the same thing over, and over, and over again — all the way back to the base without missing a single beat.

_Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, 32557038._

In the end, the doctors couldn’t save his left arm — the missing fingers on his hand had contracted gangrene and had spread all the way up to his elbow. The amputation took hours, then it took years off Steve’s life as he waited for them to finish the various operations that they had to do to reset bones and sew up exposed wounds. There wasn’t much information that Peggy and Sam could gather from the terrorists, but there was enough to imply the torture Bucky had endured for secrets he had no idea about. There was a transcript of questions they asked the older man every day for months, all pertaining to experimental weaponry and battle plans. Plans that Steve was in charge of, the mastermind behind their invasion into enemy territory. The realization hit Steve so hard that he almost didn’t make it to the restroom before emptying bile into a toilet bowl.

The simple fact of the matter was that the IED was meant for Steve, not Bucky. In the smoke and confusion, Hydra got the wrong soldier.

From then on, Steve and Bucky both accepted their honorable discharges with haunted smiles. A Purple Heart was granted to Bucky for the bravery and strength he displayed as a POW, and they made sure to keep it hidden from both their eyes to forget the horror. The ceremony they later held in the Barnes’ family home was small, done in good taste with food provided by both Mrs. Barnes and Gramma Ethel. Sarah Rogers had also shown up with an armful of flowers and scented candles, a wink thrown at her son as she pretended that they weren’t to dislodge the smell of sterilization that Bucky said followed him everywhere. Rebecca had plastered herself against her twin in a tangle of carefully placed limbs and carding her fingers through her brother’s hair, their silent bond doing all the talking for them as they refused to be apart for even a second.

Long story short, they deserved to start off fresh in a new home as far from the prying eyes and crowded streets of a suburban neighborhood.

“Thank God we decided to get here early,” Bucky chimed from the room, huffing as he threw himself onto the couch unceremoniously, “We can get some rest in before we even begin to _think_ about taking those boxes upstairs,” 

Steve hummed in agreement, grabbing his box cutter from his back pocket to open the box containing the kitchen stuff. “Now that sounds like quitter talk, Mr. Rogers,”

Bucky chuckled loudly, eyes training on his husband as he watched the other move items around in the box. “What are you doing?” he asked, shedding his cardigan onto the back of the couch, “We agreed to only open the bedding today,”

“We’ve been on the road for eleven hours, Bucky. I’m pretty sure you’re as sick of fast food as I am. Might have to make a small errand run, but I was thinking about making some soup for lunch today,”

“That sounds great. Marcy said that they went ahead and turned on the gas. Nothin’ about the lights though,”

“Buck, you made us pack up a whole box of candles. I think we’ll be fine for tonight,” Steve said, taking a pot out of the box to inspect the worn appliance. There were knicks and scratches from various instruments from years of cooking, but nothing too drastic that wouldn’t allow them to cook. “The real problem is who’s going into town to get ingredients?”

His husband tapped his fingers on the arm of their couch, twisting and twitching his nose in concentration. Truth be told, both of them were sick of driving on and off for several hours and ever the mere thought of having to drive a whole thirty-five minutes into town seemed like the worst idea ever. They couldn’t live off take-out or fast food, though, so it was a sacrifice one of them had to make. Before Steve could throw himself into the slaughter, Bucky sighed in defeat. “You drove last, so I guess it’s my turn,” the other man stood up with a groan, snatching the keys from the table nearest to the couch, “How’s the reception out here?”

“It’s fine. Marcy promised it works just as well as in the city,”

“Good. Text me what you need for dinner,” Bucky inched close enough to Steve to plant a chaste kiss on his cheek. What was meant to be a light kiss ended up with the blonde grabbing the man by his shirt and pulling him into a proper deep kiss — complete with a brush of a tongue and a nibble of a lip that had both of them chuckling into each other’s mouths. Bucky pulled away with a laugh, weakly pushing Steve away from where his lips started their attack on the veteran’s neck. “ _Steve_. I gotta hurry if we want to eat tonight,” his voice dropped, and his blue eyes adopted a lewd look that sent shivers down Steve’s spine, “Don’t worry, babydoll. We can continue this after … we tuck Lily in,”

At the mention of their daughter, Steve groaned unattractively as he let his arms fall away from his lover. Suddenly, his thoughts of breaking in their new bed were completely dashed and replaced with images of stuffed animals and pink glitter with Lily’s face right at the center of it. “Way to kill the mood, Barnes,” Steve muttered, leaning against the old wood of the banister of the stairs. The dust clouded around him, and he made a mental note to wipe it all down before even letting Lily within a foot of the thing. “I was thinking of wooing you with candles and a nice massage when you got back, maybe even a little something or being such a good sport on the drive up here, and there you go bringing up _bedtimes,”_

“Oh, stop your whining. I didn’t say it was off the table, just wanted to remind you that we ain’t all alone anymore,” Bucky said, grabbing his coat from his backpack and tucking his wallet into his back pocket. “Speaking of, where’s Lily?”

Steve pointed behind his shoulder to the backyard. “She’s playing in the backyard. Can’t blame the poor thing, I’d want to stretch my legs too after being in a car for a whole day,”

Lily’s blonde locks were peeking out from under her blushed pink knit hat that Mrs. Barnes gifted her when the adoption papers went though, though the rest of her was covered in a bulky jacket to conceal her from the country elements. With her back towards them, Steve couldn’t really make out whatever it was that she had crouched down to do, but he knew he was going to have to clean her up in the bath before bed.

She was a good daughter. Having only adopted her a few months prior, Steve and Bucky had quickly grown to love her in a way they never thought possible. Her shy exterior was still set in, despite numerous times they’ve tried to get her out of her shell. The doctors all confirmed that she wasn’t mute, because she did speak a few words here and there, though nothing close to a conversation as of late. They believed that— like most children with traumas — Lily was coping with selective mutism. The child was shy, introverted, and had a silent charm to her that no other child they interviewed ever had. All in all, she mostly kept to herself, preferring the company of her stuffed white rabbit that she had initially told them was named _Mara_. They couldn’t pry the thing from her hands even if they tried to. Wherever Lily went, Mara was practically glued to her arm.

Sam once said it must be a defense mechanism against the harshness of the life she lived prior to being adopted. Most children created attachments to anything from the past, and considering that Mara had been with the girl long before they adopted her from the Briarcliff Orphanage, they don’t think she’d be letting go of it anytime soon. It still didn’t discourage family members from gifting her other animals — lambs, lions, bears, doves, you name it. They probably had boxes full of stuffed friends that never got the same attention as Mara.

Still, it seemed like the smallest price to pay to be able to have her in their lives.

“You’re right,” Bucky said, turning away from the window and heading for the car parked in their driveway, “See if you can get some candles going before it gets dark. I’ll be right back. Don’t let her anywhere near the lake, we don’t know if she can swim ye-”

“Christ, Buck, get outta here. I know how to take care of my daughter,”

The brunette blew a kiss at his husband with a wink and walked out the door. The old oak door closed with a bang, leaving Steve to unpack the necessary boxes needed for the night. There were going to need sheets, blankets, portable chargers, and more things that Steve can’t think of at the moment. Their toiletries and pajamas were packed into their backpacks before they left the apartment that morning, so he didn’t have to really worry about Lily going to bed without proper comfortable clothing.

And be it the giddy new feeling of fatherhood washing over him, Steve couldn’t help but feel excited for their new nightly ritual. It was something that they all had fall into shortly after bringing Lily home for the first time. Bath time, pajamas, story time, and then off to bed with chaste kisses onto her head while whispering good nights. There was a sense of primal need to take care of those he loved — he feels it whenever he saw Lily curiously following a spider on its track across the room, or when she gets a strange glint in her eyes whenever they even mention strawberries. It was a drug, loving a child with a piece of his heart reserved specifically for fatherhood.

He looked at the backyard again, smiling to himself as he watched his daughter trot around in the light fog that covered the tallgrass. She hopped around, jumping up and down to watch the fog dissipate under her rain boots. The lake laid just beyond the her and land marked by the old dock that Steve couldn’t wait to jump into when summer rolled around. For now, though, the bare trees and cool chill that ran across the property was starting to give Steve ideas about a possible Halloween party.

It’ll be perfect for her first birthday with her new parents.

 

* * *

 

Bucky gets back around dusk. His arrival was announced with the rumbling of the car engine and the crunching of gravel under the tires of the cherry red pickup. The coolness of the weather outside was slowly turning into an eerie freezing cold that Steve prayed wouldn’t seep into the house more than it had already. The house was too old to have a working radiator, so they might have to bundle up together in the master bedroom with Bucky’s space heater to keep them warm.

Wiping his hands on a dishcloth, Steve looked around the candle-lit room with a sigh. There were dozens of candles lit around the room. Fat ones, skinny ones, tall ones, short ones — every single candle imaginable was placed on any elevated surface imaginable. There was just the ever-lingering fear that the drab curtains and old wood might catch fire. He also couldn’t imagine how Lily might sleep tonight considering they were in a new home without a nightlight to keep the monsters at bay. Granted, there was a big chance they were going to puppy pile in the bed later on, but he still remembered how terrified he was as a child of the scary figures that lingered under his bed at night — despite sleeping in Ma’s bed with her.

If there was one thing that the orphanage director did tell them about Lily, it was that she was not one to be scared in the face of shadows looming in closets and hallways.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Lily perked up at the sound of the car rolling up to the house, her hand stilling on the drawing she was working on since coming back out from the backyard and she sat back on her fuzzy socks. Her fingers worried over the snow white fur of Mara, a nervousness that tingled through her in anticipation. She flicked a glance over at Steve in a silent question, to which the blonde chuckled at before leaning against the doorway.

“Go help Papa with the groceries, Lilypad. Your drawings will still be here when you get back,”

She nodded, standing up swiftly with Mara’s arm held in her small fist as she walked over to her bumble bee rain boots by the door. Putting them on like slippers, she opened the door and walked out into the front porch to meet Bucky at the truck. A few seconds go by and Steve can hear the tall-tale signs that she made it over to her Papa when he can hear his husband rambling on about paint-swatches and themes for the young girl’s room.

The captain spotted the pile of paper on the floor where his daughter sat not just moments ago, and he figured that Lily might be more comfortable drawing on the dining room table rather than the hardwood floors. From one artist to another, he knew that it couldn’t be the ideal way for her to draw if she was coloring at an angle that could harm her wrist in the future.

He retrieved the drawings without stepping on the crayons, and stopped dead on his tracks.

It was a miracle that the red crayon wasn’t reduced to a non-existent nub. The figure in the drawings was a crude rendition of a human male, his body a series of triangles and rectangle limbs with two blue circles placed on top of a dramatic frown. The man was missing an arm, and half the paper was streaked with violent scratches of red that were coming from the socket of the missing appendage. The background was Cubist in nature with bulky squares and strange rectangles that looked like technolab with the man in the center laying on a table. It was unsettling to imagine a child could think up of something so gorey and realistic — all the way down to broken tendons hanging from the shoulder of the poor man. It was uncanny how well she captured the melancholy silent sadness of the figure, the fat blue tears that ran down its face in a series of raindrops, and the furrowed lines of eyebrows pointed upward, almost as if she had seen the scene firsthand. But it wasn’t the graphic gore or the rage poured into the gushing blood that had Steve stop cold in his tracks.

No, there, on the page, was a crest in the bottom corner that was virtually impossible for her to know that it even existed. The director assured them that the children only got two hours of cartoon programing a night and the books that got donated to the orphanage were all vetted, it was impossible that Lily had ever come across the Hydra symbol in her life. Even if she had, how could she have known where it was stitched into the uniform of the man’s pants.

And if that wasn’t eerie enough, the next drawing was a lone figure with ‘x’s over its eyes and the same sequence of numbers written over and over again. Every white space on the paper was filled with the same thing, overlapping and in different colors all around the head of the dead man.

_32557038\. 32557038. 32557038. 32557038. 325570383255703832557038. 32557038. 32557038325570383255703832557038325570383255703832557038. 32557038. 32557038. 32557038. 32557038. 3255703832557038. 32557038. 32557038. 32557038. 32557038. 32557038. 325570-_

“Babe?”

Steve blinked. Bucky was standing in front of him, arms filled to the brim with overfilling tote bags and Lily standing right next to him with Mara thrown over her shoulder like when burping a baby while carrying her tote bag. Her eyes looked up at Steve with the same neutral expression she always had, and didn’t even protest when her dad folded the drawings up, then tucking them into the pocket of his jeans.

“Hey, you’re back,” Steve said, bending down to gently take the bag from Lily, “How was the grocery store?”

“Really dead,” Bucky replied, following the blonde back into the kitchen. He set the bags on the counter, opening them one by one and taking things out to put away in the country-style cupboards. “There was no one inside. Seriously, there was maybe, what, one cashier? It made checkout faster that Indiana, that’s for sure,”

“I thought the town had a bigger population than out here?”

“Me too. I think most of them are older, you know? Probably got their shopping done in the morning,”

Steve hummed along. He was still trying to shake the uneasiness of seeing the drawings, the casual violence and the numbers to a serial number she had no way of knowing. Sure, Bucky might’ve said the numbers after a panic attack to ground him into reality, but it was near impossible for her to have memorized the sequence of numbers, right? Kids don’t usually remember things like numbers unless it was in an easy pattern. Then again, the girl did seem to have a knack of knowing things she shouldn’t. From telling Steve to watch his step when there was a toy car he didn’t see to asking Bucky about his amputation, she was well beyond wise for seven years old.

Chalking it up to asking Lily about it tomorrow, he pushed the thought to the deepest corner of his mind for later and began to listen to the veteran’s story about the creepy grocery store that sat in the middle of town. He laughed along to the bits of Bucky nearly shitting himself when his phone rang in the dead silence of the store, and he replied back to add his two cents. It was domestic, just like they always talked after their day, the only difference being the small child watching them from the arch of the doorway. Not only her, but the beady black eyes of Mara seemingly having a sentient consciousness.

 

* * *

 

“ _Wake up. Look outside.”_

Steve twitched in his sleep, shifting a little closer to the middle of the bed where Bucky held Lily in his arms.

“ _Wake up. Look outside. You must wake up.”_

_“Quiet, you dried up old whore. Quiet before you wake the dear child.”_

_“Sir, please, wake up,”_

Opening his eyes, all that Steve saw before him was darkness surrounding the room. The windows of the master bedroom were damp and covered in small rain drops, a mist covering the cold glass from the outside. He turned his head to his left. Lily was fast asleep, blonde hair sticking to her lips were a small line of drool slipped out the corner of her mouth and onto the prosthetic hand of her dad. Mara was tucked under her chin, facing outward as a watchful eye for her owner as she slept. From their position, Steve couldn’t quite see his husband’s face, but the slow unison rising of his chest along with Lily’s was enough for Steve to be satisfied.

 _What time is it?_ he thought, rubbing his eyes with his palm hard enough to see stars dancing in his vision. He opened his eyes again, slapped around the nightstand for his phone, and watched the device come to life in his hands.

It was three in the morning on the dot, and the room was freezing to the point of actually starting to bother him. No wonder he woke up so suddenly in the middle of the night. It was a miracle that the breeze from the opened window didn’t trigger one of Bucky’s infamous nightmares. Getting up, Steve tried not to jostle Lily and Bucky too much other than a slight groan and stirring before they settled back into their previous heap.

The old wood under his feet felt like marble, and he could feel almost every groove under his foot as he walked over to the large window. The curtains were as old as the house himself, having long gone from white to a gross yellowish tint that reminded Steve of unkept teeth. They danced in the wind, shifting back and forth and painting the path for the cold breeze to fly in from. But that didn’t seem to be the only thing that the wind brought.

The window overlooked the front yard and beyond that were the woods that he and Bucky still needed to explore before they even thought about letting Lily go near them. There used to be a town of hunters nearby, and they don’t want to risk any injuries due to forgotten bear traps. Unless there so happened to still be someone that decided to take a hunting trip from the next town over, it was nearly impossible for there to be what Steve was currently staring at.

On the lawn, standing in a huddle, were people staring back at him.

Only, they didn’t look normal. No, these people looked like they got lost on their way to a costume party. They stood eerily still and some were hardly dressed for the cold October night, barely breathing as they watched him from their perches down below. The moonlight gave them a sickly pale look, but he couldn’t see their eyes clearly despite being able to see everything else as clear as day. This was a huddled mass of perhaps a dozen, give or take. At the front of the mob, there was a woman in a bonnet and a scarlet red shawl that rested on her shoulders. She looked to be no older than twenty, and hers was the only face he could actually see from his vantage point. The wind continue to blow through the last leaves that remained on the trees, but the crowd’s clothes didn’t move a single inch as they continued to stare at him.

The woman raised her finger, pointing at him with a cracked fingernail. She didn’t speak, nor move her lips, yet Steve knew exactly who she wanted and he’ll be damned if they even get to lay a single fucking finger on his daughter. He snarled at her, but she didn’t even look vaguely threatened when she lowered her finger to point at a spot right in front of her feet.

It was horrific.

Piles of dead ravens were arranged in the shape of an upside down cross. Their bodies were mutilated beyond repair, and had it not been for their jet black feathers, Steve wouldn’t know what was currently being slaughtered on their land. Their heads were torn off brutally, their guts tangled with another’s, and their bones scattered around them to form a circle that brought the eye right to the display. The blood of the ravens were in stark contrast with the muted colors of the property, making it all the more disturbing that someone could do such a thing and make it so that everyone who saw got an eye full.

Steve wanted to scream, to cry, to punch something. How dare someone trespass onto their land and do such a vile thing? Especially in perfect view of his daughter who was just a child. He desperately hoped that the group were just teenagers pulling a Halloween prank to scare the new homeowners. They were sick, twisted, and deranged to come up with such a thing, but Steve would rather deal with a group of dumb teens that face the other very real possibility that they were all country homophobic hicks. They were so careful in finding a place that wouldn’t judge them for being who they were and choosing to make a family from that love. It was depraved to think that people like this existed.

The group all started to point at him as they joined their leader, a low rumbling of a chant coming from them as they started to grow more restless and the smell of rotting flesh began to fill Steve’s senses. They started to get louder, almost screaming, saying, “ _The girl,”_ in gravelly and hissing voices that were now loud enough to start to hurt his ears. They wouldn’t stop, not even when there was a twisted voice that shouted back at them in an inhumane octave. Whatever it was, it would bellow at them to shut up, spewing insults and promising to devour their souls one by one until there was nothing left of they existence. It screamed that they were all sinful and going to get just what they deserved, starting with their hypocritical bitch leader to which it was tear her limb from limb and eat her entrails like a dog-

Steve woke up, and his phone read four am.

The dream really shook him, leaving him feeling hollowed and jittery, so he decided to get a head start on breakfast. He walked downstairs, being careful not to put too much weight on a step and risk waking up his husband and daughter from their blissful slumber. The early morning was refreshing, the cleanest slate possible for a new life in a new home with their newly adopted daughter. It was absolutely perfect, a whole door of possibilities opening right before him as he started this new life with a hot pot of coffee for his love and perhaps blueberry pancakes for the little princess.

After years of Hell, they were finally ready to start anew.

That is, if only the woman with the bonnet in the corner of the room would allow them to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and let me know if you saw some of the hints I planted in there. If I missed a tag, let me know! 
> 
> And as always, follow me on tumblr @latinacap and comment on what you think will happen to next.


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